294. That is absurd.

There is a hubristic manifest destiny that lots of average Americans live in that cannot be found anywhere else.

The "only in America" phrase that accomplishes almost any story of simple good will on the local TV station (especially around holidays) is mind boggling and vomit inducing, and absent outside US borders. Simple stories of neighbors helping neighbor are invariably ruined by the ultimate 'only in America'.

The truly only thing that is unique to America is the self congratulatory back slapping of the phrase "only in America" where people are continually lulled into the syrupy mythology that the US is just over flowing with instances of overwhelming generosity and that the rest of the world is without basic human decencies. I have found the reverse to be true, that poorer simpler cultures who are less consumerist in nature to be a great deal more generous.

I have spent more of my adult life outside of the US than in it and while I enjoy everywhere I have lived, including the US, I can't wait to retire and return living in a world that is less caught up in congratulating itself in its moral loftiness and living with people who are more interested in simply connecting with each other in a much less superficial way.